U.S. Department of State – Eldercare

The U.S. Department of State provides a one page overview of how to care for elderly loved ones for foreign service workers. While there are some good reminders and tips for who are taking care of an elderly senior from far away, the information is inadequate for the many aspects of elder care. We cannot recommend this website as a helpful eldercare resource for the general public.

Scoring

Ease of Use

Topics here are organized into sections that are listed at the top of the page like "Communicating with Elderly Parents," and "Eldercare Housing Options." Visitors can use the topic links to jump between sections or return to the top of the page. The page features a large amount of text without multimedia additions which makes for a dry reading experience.

Visual Design

The site's design is nothing more than list of topics in blue font against a white background. All information can be found on a single page so that users need only to scroll down to access what's available. But there is no visual appeal to this website whatsoever. All text with no multimedia, and a design only slightly more complicated than a wiki.

Quality

This website is only relevant to a small group of people. But even for this small group, the content is limited, shallow, and not engaging at all. The content does carry the authority of the U.S. government, but otherwise there is very little use here for the general reader.

Credibility

This is government website attributes its content to the Family Liaison Office, but no authors are identified. Additionally, the site's information does not include dates so that users cannot know how current it is.

Pros

Important information for Foreign Service employees with elderly parents